


Leave the Deck (Resist Fate)

by PuppyLove2468



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Apocalypse time baby, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Gen, No beta we die like Six, Roleswap, basically a summary of apocalypse time, guess who figured out how to format!, its me!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28133217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppyLove2468/pseuds/PuppyLove2468
Summary: Ben didn't mean to go this far.But here he was, 2019.The end of the world.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Leave the Deck (Resist Fate)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Radioactive by Fall Out Boy

Fire

Fire everywhere.

Ash, fire, and heat.

Not a plant in sight.

It took all day to reach the Academy on foot, most of it was spent trying to make his way through an already unfamiliar city, made unrecognizable by the destruction.

Every now and then he would see the remains of a place he had been with his siblings:

The bank? Reduced to a couple of marble pillars and a flaming interior.

The bowling alley? Ash and rubble.

Griddy’s? All that remained was the sign.

It all left him numb as he made his way up the sidewalk to his home.

He couldn’t even muster up the horror he knew he should be feeling at the site of the Academy in ruins.

Hacking up ash, he made his way inside, if it could even qualify as an inside.

Before him lay bodies, four of them.

A man buried under rubble, only his face visible.

A dark skinned woman next to him on her stomach, part of what was once the ceiling on top of her.

Another man, hand outstretched towards the last body.

A petite woman, sleeve rolled up and neck bent at an odd angle.

His eyes caught on her wrist, a tattoo stained in the skin, exactly like his own, an umbrella surrounded with a circle.

_This-_

_This was Vanya._

_So-_

_The others must be-_

His family lay dead at his feet, two of his brothers missing from the reunion.

“ _Klaus?”_

_“Six?”_

_“Anyone?”_

Tears fell down his face, already stained with ash.

Curling up in a ball near his siblings, Ben sobbed to himself.

\-------------------

By the time his situation started to sink in he was in desperate need of shelter, ash raining from the sky, and the dry heat pounding down on him.

Luckily, down the street from the Academy was a small grocery store, not big enough to contain fresh food but stocked full of snacks, drinks, and canned food.

It was an oasis in the desert that surrounded him.

It was a great place to set up camp as he tried to figure out how to return home.

It was also where he found the newspaper proclaiming his father dead, the date at the top read March, 30th 2019

_The day the world ended._

\--------------------

Now, Ben wasn’t a very practical person, he loved fantasies and tried to see the best in people, he was an optimist and hated conflict.

Some would say those are good qualities.

Others would say they make him very malleable.

The Handler loved malleable people, they could be convinced so easily of the commissions goals.

And Ben Hargreeves had a skill set she quite liked in a pawn.

He was book smart and lacked the social awareness to notice her manipulations, eager to please, lonely, and with some time, just desperate enough to go along with anything she said.

He was perfect.

All she had to do was wait.

\---------------------

Three weeks into the apocalypse he found the first one.

A small, blue, octopus stuffed animal with a grumpy expression, it reminded him inexplicably of his brother.

Ben named it Seis.

Whenever he felt lonely he would talk to the small toy until he started to hear it talk back.

Logically, he knew that wasn’t a good sign, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, it was like he had a friend.

They found Addison a month later, she was a doll with a dark complexion and a dazzling smile.

She fit in easily.

After that they started popping up like flies.

They found Lucus, a golden retriever, in a nearby school.

(Luckily it was empty, it seemed school had been out when the world ended, Ben was glad he didn’t have to find the bodies.)

Kasey and Django came from a park, a furby and an action figure respectively.

Finally Ben found Viola in a car, standing on the dashboard facing away from the destruction of the outside world.

\-----------------------

Ben was nineteen when the world started living again, daisies sprung up between the cracks in the sidewalk, green was visible almost everywhere, and the ash and flame were long gone.

For the first time in a long time he smiled.

Things were easier after that, he grew things, he set up a permanent place to stay in the public library, far from his siblings’ rotting corpses.

Things were looking up, but Ben was desperately looking back, he collected every scientific text on time travel, everything from his father’s collection, that is how he found the book.

_Life Inside the Academy: A Memoir by Klaus, Vanya and Six Hargreeves_

It was his everything.

He carried it with him long after he had memorized every word.

It was how he learned of the aftermath of his disappearance, his brother’s early death, his siblings’ escape from the Academy, their sadness and their joy, the apartment the higher numbers shared, Luther and Allison’s lives in LA, Diego’s enrollment in the police academy.

It answered every question but one.

“Why were they at the Academy the day the world ended?”

His need to know was driving him insane.

\--------------------

He was twenty-five when he started to seriously consider never making it out, there had always been hope, some new scrap of information, some tiny bit of support from his friends; but Ben was feeling quite hopeless.

Many days he couldn’t even bring himself to work on the equations, it seemed pointless.

So he took a walk, farther than he had allowed himself to go from his shelter for a long time.

And he found a magazine, it was old, from a few years before the world ended, but the cover made him gasp.

_It was Allison - with her husband - and a baby girl._

_A baby._

_Ben was an uncle._

_Ben_ was _an uncle, but-_

_But his niece was dead._

_He never got to meet her, she was gone._

_He would try, just so he could meet her, just for the slim chance that it worked and he could stop the apocalypse and could be a part of his family’s lives._

_He missed them._

_And he would try._

\---------------------

He was thirty-two when She came for him.

She was his salvation and his doom all rolled into one neat package and tied with a bow.

She was an angel here to drag him deeper into hell.

She was the Handler.

And she was done waiting.


End file.
